Fourteen years ago Real Madrid star Luis Figo was attacked with a severed pig’s head against ex-club Barcelona in most bitter El Clasico ever

The former Barca hero was pelted by the fans who once adored him inside the unforgiving Nou Camp in a fiery 0-0 draw

Feature

by WALLY DOWNES JR

23rd November 2016,8:46 am

Updated: 28th February 2018,7:15 am

FOURTEEN years ago today – on 23 November 2002 – Real Madrid superstar Luis Figo, the original Galactico and Balon d’Or winner, was clearing away the area around the Nou Camp corner flag at the home of former club, Barcelona, when the butchered head of a pig was hurled at him.

The world record £44million deal to take the Portuguese away from the Catalan side and across Spain to the capital two years earlier reignited one of the bitterest feuds in football and the vicious hatred and spite was never demonstrated more perfectly than when the severed swine skull laid at the feet of Luis Filipe Madeira Caeiro Figo.

There were riot police on hand the night Figo was attacked with a pig head during El Clasico

It was the Almada-born hero’s second return to Barca’s base but his first had crept by under the radar – punctuated subtly by jeers and boos by an already partisan crowd – although he was taken off corner-taking duties for one of the few games of his career.

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Figo and the other 21 players were removed from the pitch after tensions spilled over

His second was to set the benchmark for the level of hate this fixture spewed. The mutilated bonce of the animal became the face of Spanish football’s most vicious conflict.

The fiery 0-0 draw simmered along with the spectacular talent on show and the La Liga points on offer playing second fiddle to the baying mob around all four corners and in every nook and cranny of the ground.

And, when the genius No10 trotted over to take a late corner, the heavens appeared to open only for a hail of lighters, bottles and cans to rain down around the former Sporting Lisbon man.

The game was halted for all of 16 minutes by dumbfounded referee Medina Cantalejo – probably bamboozled by the bacon bombardment – as the official did his best to calm the volcanic situation.

Even after the controversies of the match, the conspiracies swiftly followed. Real Madrid players after the game even claimed they saw golf balls and a knife on the pitch but that could have been exaggerated as in the days after the game tall-tales grew.

This was the severed pig head that landed at the feet of the playmaker

Barcelona director Gabriel Masfurro claimed the Madrid press had concocted the whole story and had their cameramen plant the porker.

And the Barcelona boss of the time – former Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal blamed Figo for taking his corners too slowly.

The Dutchman said: “Figo provoked the fans.

“He walked over to the corner really slowly, picked up the bottle slowly, went back to the corner. And all this was done consciously and deliberately, without the referee doing anything to stop it.”

Figo’s response to van Gaal’s nonsense and the insults hurled his way by then Barca president Joan Gaspart was brutal.

He said: “I don’t know if Gaspart is taking the p***.” And of his former manager’s criticism, he was even more withering, saying: “He never said anything when he was my manager for two years. And I’ve saved his a*** more than once.”

SOCCEROOS

Figo’s response to the hate was to win the title with Real that season – his second with the Bernabeu side and his fourth in total after the long-forgotten consecutive crowns he collected with his new enemies in 1998 and 1999.

After dominating La Liga he switched to Serie A and collected four Scudettos on the spin, cementing his name in the pantheon of modern greats.

The achievements – footballing or otherwise – of the tragic pig were never investigated or revealed but his tragic decapitation at least earned him a place in football folklore as a symbol of fandom at its most savage.